Blue White Illustrated

season and what it was going to take to move forward and get better," he said. Ash thought that he had gotten his point across, and when spring practice wrapped up five months later, he felt as though he had the makings of a much-improved football team. Then the season began, and things started going wrong again. The sea- son-opening loss to No. 8 Washington was hardly unexpected, but a week later, Rut- gers lost at home to Eastern Michigan. After routing Morgan State, the Scarlet Knights dropped their first two Big Ten games, the second of which was a 56-0 loss to Ohio State that looked a lot like the more dismal moments from the previous season. Ash continued to insist that his team had made strides, but as they prepared for a mid-October road trip to Illinois, the Scarlet Knights' bandwagon was looking even emptier than it had a few weeks ear- lier. "When you start off 1-4, you know, peo- ple don't believe you. They kind of laugh at you," Ash said. "But this was still a much better football team even though our record was 1-4. We just didn't make some plays that we needed to make to get the victories." Against the Illini, they made those plays, coming away with a 35-24 win. They made a few more in a 14-12 victory over Purdue the following week, and while they weren't able to hang with Michigan in Ann Arbor, they bounced back last weekend with a 31- 24 win over Maryland. Heading into their visit to University Park this weekend, the Knights are on something resembling a roll. They have al- ready doubled last season's win total and go into their last three games with a chance to attain bowl eligibility. Rutgers would have to defeat Indiana and upset ei- ther Penn State or Michigan State to real- ize that goal, so it won't be an easy task. But coming off of last season's debacle, their mere presence among college foot- ball's potential bowl participants is an achievement in itself. And Ash, who pre- viously served as defensive coordinator at Wisconsin, Arkansas and Ohio State, traces their improvement to that rough patch earlier this year. "That's part of the process of building a team," he said. "It starts with teaching the players how to compete, and that's what we were going through during that 1-4 stretch – we were competing, we were playing with everybody. The only game we haven't really competed in this year was the Ohio State game; the wheels kind of fell off in that game. But we've competed in every [other] game. "The next step has been to try to get our players to understand what it's going to take to win games. It's the details, it's the discipline, it's the execution, it's the con- sistency. ... But the energy, the enthusiasm, the preparation, all that stuff, effort – that's all been there. That's shown up every Saturday. That's part of the process. Part of building a team is teaching them how to make those plays and be consistent. That will help you get that 'W,' and that's the difference. It's not anything else." One of the keys to Rutgers' improvement has been the development of the ground game. The Scarlet Knights were 12th in the conference a year ago with an average of 144.9 yards per game on the ground, but they scored a coup in February when Gus Edwards left Miami (Fla.) to join Rutgers as a graduate transfer. A native of Staten Is- land, N.Y., Edwards had tried to transfer to either Syracuse or Pitt, but Miami refused to release him to a school on their upcom- ing schedule. He has since emerged as the Knights' leading rusher with 630 yards on 140 carries. N O V E M B E R 8 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 2 NATE BAUER 7-2 | Penn State fans are anxious, and the program is rightfully disap- pointed following a pair of close road losses to Ohio State and Michigan State. But the Nit- tany Lions have no reason to panic, seeing as the combined deficit was by four points against two teams ranked among college football's best. Although improved from recent it- erations, Rutgers isn't of the same caliber as those other teams, and it won't pose the same challenge, especially at Beaver Stadium. | PENN STATE 47, RUTGERS 17 PHIL GROSZ 7-2 | I think that Penn State has found the perfect opponent to help it end its two-game losing streak. Offensively, Rutgers is a one-dimensional team that has depended almost entirely on its running game to win three of its past four games. Despite the fact that they average 167.4 yards per game rushing and have totaled 19 rushing touchdowns, the Scarlet Knights rank 13th in the Big Ten in scoring offense, averaging only 22.6 points per game.The reason is that Rutgers' offense has no balance whatsoever. The Scarlet Knights' passing game ranks last in the Big Ten with a meager average of 127 yards per game. Penn State's offense will score points in bunches against Rutgers' defense. Games against USC, Ohio State and Michigan State have laid out the blueprint for beating Penn State. But that blueprint calls for about 50 passing attempts, and that's not something Rutgers' offense is designed to do. | PENN STATE 45, RUTGERS 13 MATT HERB 8-1 | Penn State is in the midst of its first losing streak since the 2015 sea- son, but there are a lot of reasons to think it will fare pretty well against Rutgers. The Nittany Lions will be playing at home, where they've gone 12-0 the past two seasons, and they'll be facing a run-oriented opponent that appears to lack the passing prowess that Ohio State and Michigan State used to keep their defense off-balance. And then there's the series history, which needs no further rehashing here. I think the Nittany Lions will get back on track and Saquon Barkley will have one of his better games of the season. But I also think the 28-point betting line is a little high. Rutgers has struggled mightily against the East Division's better teams, but that's a big spread considering that the Knights have made some progress lately. | PENN STATE 38, RUTGERS 17 TIM OWEN 8-1 | This is the week Penn State gets back on track. Not solely because of the opponent – Rutgers is overachieving this year and has fought hard against decent teams – but because aBer two consecutive losses, the Nittany Lions return home where they're at their best. With the pressure largely off them aBer a brutal midseason three- game stretch, I'm expecting to see that freewheeling offense make its return en route to a commanding win. | PENN STATE 42, RUTGERS 14 RYAN SNYDER 7-2 | ABer back-to-back losses at Ohio State and Michigan State, look for the Nittany Lions to get back on track against the Big Ten's second-worst rushing de- fense. | PENN STATE 45, RUTGERS 17 S T A F F P R E D I C T I O N S

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